


Artemisia

by Andromeda Valentine (GunBunnyCentral)



Category: Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:39:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GunBunnyCentral/pseuds/Andromeda%20Valentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dylan wakes Rommie up after that all-important 'first night'...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artemisia

**Author's Note:**

> The poem I quote here is Artemisia, by the very talented Medbh McGuckian - it can be found in her book 'Venus And The Rain.' I first read this poem in a Creative Writing course some years ago, and I have always felt there was something beautiful and deeply sexual about it.

I awake before she does, and I can't help watching her while she sleeps. She seems so different like this, free of all the walls she keeps around herself when she's awake.

You'd think I'd be sated after last night, but just looking at her causes my desire for her to start building again.

_For six months now, one jasmine_  
Has perfumed my bed - in the morning  
It is like the scent of friends, the society  
Of roses! 

It's an old friend to me by now, a combination of want and need that's kept me company for months now in the absence of hers. It's the last thing on my mind at night and what I wake up to every morning after dreaming of her.

Part of me still can't believe she's actually here in my bed, and I can't resist the urge to reach out and feel the reality for myself.

Softly - so as not to wake her - I reach a hand out to stroke her hair and then her cheek. She barely stirs, so I get bolder and run my hand down her side, savoring the warm softness of her skin.

_Yet I’m learning_  
How heart odours cling to any wrist  
That has lingered over violets  
Or immersed itself in musk four-fingers  
Long, and spared no alcove  
Of the body from its ample mist or rain. 

Almost of its own accord, my hand slides over to cup a breast, thumb grazing across a nipple, and I smile as she moans softly and shifts in her sleep without waking.

Tentatively, almost as if still in doubt of her reality, I work my way down her stomach an inch at a time, reveling in the way her muscles play under her skin at my touch. Finally, my hand comes to rest between her legs.

Cupping her sex possessively, memorizing the feel of its heat against my hand, I let my fingers explore the warm dampness beneath them. She shifts in her sleep again, allowing me better access, and I gently slide two fingers in and out of her, smiling at the slight whimper that escapes her as she starts trembling in my arms.

_When I accuse myself again of lacking_  
Water, or that subtle Greek custom  
Of disfavouring my older, chosen sachet,  
Wearing peachwood, or fenugreek, the artemisia  
Offers me the formula of a flower still on stem,  
Cupped to the last adulterous perfection. 

Her eyes flutter open as the last faint waves of her orgasm wash over her, and in that moment she looks like a tumbled angel to me, possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen...

She returns my smile with a sleepy 'Morning...' before my hands start moving again, leaving her gasping instead, and the only thing I can think of as she shudders in my arms a second time is why the hell I waited so long for this...


End file.
